Entries from Ecuador
Woke up to clear blue skies (over the city anyway) psyched to get up into the hills and stretch the legs a bit. I met the gang down in the hotel restaurant and wasn't shocked to find they were also revved up for getting the trip started in earnest. After a quick bite to eat, we linked up with Jaime and jumped in some taxis headed for the Teleferico. This gondola took us up high above the city onto the slopes of Rucu Pichincha, one of two sister peaks on an active volcano. Quito's sprawl actually starts to climb up the flanks of the mountain and this proximity was bad news for the city in the 90's when the volcano belched a huge quantity of ash onto the metropolis. Well, with no signs of imminent eruption the team was able to climb from the top of the gondola at just above 13,000' to the summit at right around 15,400' in about 2.5 hours! Good stuff! Being able to move well on our first foray is a great indicator of the group's overall fitness. The climb was largely hiking on decent trail, but the last several hundred feet involved some really fun 4th class rock climbing. Everyone was feeling the elevation but moving and climbing incredibly well. The whole time we climbed we were followed by an awesome dog who even made the rock moves to the summit, my guess is that he was hoping to snag a few more of Jaime's chicharrones... The team managed a quick and efficient descent, downloaded the gondola, and hopped a van back to the hotel. After hustling around town to shag a few miscellaneous gear items, I took a nice siesta and met up with everyone for another team dinner. Good times.
Tomorrow we head out of Quito and up for another training hike before starting our approach on Cotopaxi, more as it develops...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Hello everyone following along back home and welcome to another series of dispatches from this year's summer Cotopaxi Express trip!
After a long night of scuttling back and forth from the airport Jaime and myself finally got the crew settled in last night at our hotel here in Quito. Since everyone is usually a bit bushed from long travel times from the states we typically start out our first day of the program on a city tour of some of Quito's colonial sites in addition to a visit to the exact geographical equator. We were fortunate enough to climb the bell tower in the Basilica (a neo-gothic cathedral), walk the streets of the old town (world's first UNESCO World Heritage Site), visit the Church de la Compañia de Jesús (baroque interior guilded w/ 7 tons of gold leaf and one of the oldest churches in South America), and play with funky coriolis phenomena on the exact geographical equator. Despite the lack of physical exertion, the gang was still pretty tired after cruising around town all day at an elevation around 9,000'. We ran some errands, took a little siesta, and then met up for our first team dinner later this evening. The gang is starting to open up a bit and get to know each other better, a good thing considering the challenges ahead! Tomorrow begins the first of our acclimatization hikes...
Hasta mañana,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Success!
The gang went to bed with another deceptively improving weather trend only to wake up (for the third time this trip) in the middle of the night to more stormy weather. We decided that since this was our last chance we'd give a hail Mary attempt. After a quick breakfast and some tinkering with gear and backpacks the time came for us to push out. Surprisingly, the winds had started calming down, which heartened the guides at least a little bit. As it turned out, that abatement was indeed only temporary...
We climbed to the edge of the glacier and roped/cramponed up, and after only an hour or two in the elements we were starting to ice up. Somehow everybody kept it together and we continued upwards into worsening winds, winding our way through a jumble of a glacier and then skirting around the massive rock face of Yanasacha. Weather was bad most of the day but after reaching the upper slopes of the mountain we were fully exposed. When we reached the summit (half of us crawling) we were elated but couldn't stay long because of the blastingly continuous 50 mph wind and the fact that were covered with over and inch (yes an inch!) of ice from being in a freezing lenticular cloud all day. The guys were a little beat but pulled it together to descend like champs all the way back down to the refugio. All in all we were out in the storm for a little over 10 hours, managing to bag the summit and safely descend.
We were greeted back at the refugio by Victor, our driver, who had hiked up from the parking lot to hang out. Knowing our ride was waiting down the hill, we celebrated with a quick beer and crammed all of our crap into our packs. A short walk down a scree field brought us to the van which brought us back to civilization in Quito!
The team showered up and hit the town for a fabulous multi-course meal complete with wine and pisco to celebrate properly. Hopefully folks weren't too ragged making their early a.m. flights.
I'd like to thank a great group of guys for making this such a fun and memorable trip (pako's ipa, triple cheeseburgers, two left crampons, pansies, sock boiling, knee taking, etc.) and thank Jaime and Diego for being awesome guides and a pleasure to work with. Thanks again everybody!
Signing off, for now...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Hell of week for cotopaxi huh?
Posted by: Nate on 7/3/2012 at 10:45 pm
Wow!I’m impressed and awestruck. You guys still have all of your toes?? :-)
Posted by: Paula on 6/30/2012 at 4:18 pm
6/26/2012 4:00 pm Hey Everybody it’s Billy calling to check in from the Jose Ribas Refugio here on Cotopaxi (16,000’ ft). We elected to head up the hut early so we could give ourselves a full night and a little bit better of a chance of getting to the top because the weather has been so poor. So we are going to get up in the middle of the night tonight and hopefully these winds will die down a bit and the lenticular clouds will clear. If the weather is not very good we will attempt a day climb. So we will check in again tomorrow and let you know how things played out.
6/27/2012 7:00 am Hey Gang, it's Billy again. I'm calling to let you know that we got up in the middle of the night last night and it was blowing pretty hard so we decided to wait until the morning to see if we could attempt a day climb. We got up around 6 and we had a big lenticular cloud and pretty steady wind of 40 mph here at the hut. It is blowing a pretty consistent 50 mph just above where we are at right now. We are back into a holding pattern. So tonight will be our last chance to go climbing. We will head out into it unless it is just absolutely insanely awful. So wish us luck. Hopefully the winds will have died down and we will have chance to get out and do some climbing. We will check in again to let you know how things went.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent checking in from Jose Ribas Refugio on Cotopaxi.
On The Map
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Categories: Expedition Dispatches Ecuador
RMI Guide Billy Nugent and team were forced to abort their summit bid on Cayambe due to windy and snowy conditions. After resting and trying to dry out in the hut they began an eventful drive down the mountain with muddy roads, lots of snow and a flat tire. The team is resting nicely at the Chilcabamba Eco Lodge at the base of Cotopaxi.
Listen to Billy's dispatch below for more details.
We look forward to hearing from the team tomorrow to see what the weather has in store for them.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent checks in after the team's summit bid and descent from Cayambe.
On The Map
Hey, everybody this is Billy calling and checking in from Ecuador on the Ecuador’s Volcanoes trip. The crew woke up yesterday morning at the Hosteria San Luis, where we enjoyed some really nice facilites after our hike on Cero Fuya Fuya. We went to the famous Andean Market in Otavalo where the crew got a chance to see all the local handicrafts and eat some crazy foods, all the cool stuff that’s for sale on a super busy Saturday market. It was a real treat that we were there on a Saturday.
Then we geared up and headed up to the hut on Cayambe. The road was in super bad condition. So, we ended up having to run laps with the 4x4 thru some deep mud while the rest of the crew was walking along the way. Vans couldn’t get within 10 km of the refugio.
But everybody is up here right now. We are taking a rest day. We did a bit of training and we are hanging out. Hopefully getting geared up for a summit attempt tonight. The weather has been super awful all day. Lots of clouds, blowing snow, lots of wind and everything around us is covered with ice and rime
Currently the weather is improving so we are keeping our fingers crossed for tonight and we’ll take our first crack at a big volcano.
So, we’ll call and check in tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Signing off for now,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
RMI Guide Billy Nugent checks in from the Cayambe Hut.
Another casual morning... We ate some breakfast, checked out of the Mercure (our hotel) around 8 am or so, loaded up the van and Jaime's truck, then hit the road. Heading north on the PanAmerican Highway, we left Quito and passed through the town of Otavalo, famous for it's large open air market. Eventually we turned off the highway and headed up into the countryside on our approach to Cerro Fuya Fuya. After many kilometers of driving on a cobblestone road up into the mountains we reached Laguna Mojanda and the base of Fuya Fuya. The lake is actually a giant caldera filled with water (think Crater Lake in OR) and made for a great backdrop to our second training hike. A couple hours of hiking and scrambling brought us to the summit at well over 14,000'. We enjoyed clear and sweeping views from la cumbre of the two valleys below in addition to the big Laguna. After a quick break on top we beat feet for the cars to try and out pace some menacing clouds. Everyone was feeling great.
After another short trip in the van we arrived at the beautiful Hosteria San Luis. Talk about traveling in style, there are beautiful gardens, stables, classic colonial architecture, a pool, and a pond. The gang is settling in and enjoying the last bit of luxury before heading up to the climber's refugio on Cayambe.
I'll call and check in tomorrow night from the refugio,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Woke up today to blue skies and a bunch of climbers eager to get the adventure started. We had a quick breakfast in the hotel cafe and then the team met up with Jaime, one of our local guides, before we set out in taxis for a ride up the teleferiqo (gondola) to a perch high above the city. The skies were clear, affording us an awesome view of Cayambe, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, and the Illinizas. After taking in our surroundings we started our training hike that eventually took us up to the summit of Rucu Pichincha at nearly 15,500'. The team felt great and was moving incredibly well considering that most of us had come from very close to sea level in the U.S. just a couple days prior. Unfortunately, we were socked in the clouds on the summit but shortly after beginning our descent we emerged from a higher cloud layer and again had the opportunity to enjoy sweeping views of the mountains and the sprawl of Quito.
We hopped in a colectivo van for a ride back to the hotel and most of us took a quick siesta before heading out on the town for another team dinner, this time at La Boca del Lobo. We even enjoyed some pretty awesome views of the urban wildlife on our walk back from the restaurant. The crew hit the sack pretty early tonight tired from today but also in preparation for another early start tomorrow as we head out of Quito and begin our journey towards our first big objective, Cayambe.
Will check in again tomorrow,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Hi everybody and welcome to the first installation of many dispatches from this summer's Ecuador Volcanoes program!
The team finally met each other as a complete group this morning for breakfast after several hectic laps between the airport and hotel late last night. Team members were trickling in gradually through the night and the crowds of Ecuadorians awaiting family members made for quite a scene. Actually, it was more like a zoo with a traffic jam outside. Fortunately, Jaime and Victor (our expert locals) were incredibly helpful in scooping up our climbers and adept at navigating the melee. Anyway, after a decent breakfast and getting to know each other a bit the team headed out for a day cruising around Quito as full-fledged tourists of the sight-seeing variety. With the majority of the city situated at over 9,000' we have actually already begun our acclimatization process. After a long day of travel just to arrive in Ecuador, it was nice to have a day to just cruise around and get comfortable.
The city tour hit up lots of old colonial and contemporary sights including religious, governmental, and culturally significant buildings. We climbed the rickety catwalks high in the Basilica and caught tremendous 360 degree views of this huge metropolis of more than 3 million citizens and later went to the exact geographical equator where we played around with the strange forces the earth's rotation creates uniquely on the middle of the planet. The equator museum also had a cool sort of natural history museum with a collection of flora and fauna and anthropological relics from Ecuador's various regions. We're talking giant anaconda and boa skins, real human shrunken heads, and a gnarly, preserved amazon candiru - look it up... The team had fun getting to hang out in a casual atmosphere and we aim to keep the fun going as we begin some of our physical activity tomorrow with a training hike up on Rucu Pichincha, a volcano right above the city where we will hopefully hit nearly 16,000'. That should help jump start the acclimatization followed by a night's rest at relatively lower altitude in Quito.
Well, headed off to dinner with the crew, more to come as the situation develops,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Have a save climb! Hope the weather is cooperative and you get great views the whole way.
Posted by: Oscar on 6/21/2012 at 9:17 pm
Have gun you guys. Be safe
Posted by: chris fisher on 6/20/2012 at 7:00 pm
After our hailstorm approach and the lightning storms visible on the horizon, no one on our team really had a lock on how the day would turn out. When we started breaking trail at midnight and the stars quickly disappeared, everyone crossed their fingers that Cotopaxi would let us stand on top. Luckily fortune smiled on us and we managed to find our way through some quickly changing glacial conditions with plenty of new snow to go with. The higher we climbed, the clearer it got and this team did a great job climbing smart and safe on this tough mountain and we all returned healthy and happy, albeit with the weirdest facial tanning we've seen. Thanks for a great trip with an awesome team.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
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Glad to hear of the good first day of climbing. We will be following updates daily. Go get em Kevin.
Posted by: walt thome on 7/3/2012 at 7:08 pm
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